‘Sorry, good game’: why English rugby attitudes still infuriate France

The one thing France fear about England isn’t their scrum, maul or back-play – it’s their attitude when they beat them

Always eager to keep its readers up to speed, the Guardian marked the inclusion of the France rugby team in the Five Nations by providing a quick glossary of pertinent terms. “Marquer” was one, “plaquer” another, “melee” a third, all familiar enough now after a hundred-and-some years of playing each other. Another essential phrase has come into the French game in that time, one borrowed from the English, who are, amusingly, almost entirely oblivious to its significance: “Sorry, good game.”

This phrase, or something like it, is what the English captain Vince Cartwright said to the France players after they went down 35-8 in the first fixture at the Parc des Princes in Paris in 1906. “Sorry, good game,” or something like it, is what Ian Preece repeated after he had kicked the key drop goal in an 8-3 victory in 1949, when France were on a run of 43 years without winning in England. “Sorry, good game,” is, most indelibly, what the French heard, over and over again, from Will Carling, during the back half of a run of eight straight English victories that spanned 1989-1995.

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